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Our Bedtime Routines and Rituals

September 4, 2016

When my twin girls were born they were six weeks early. As such they spent four weeks in the neo-natal unit. This led to them having a day to day routine pretty early on. The nurses were great in helping us to establish a routine and we brought that routine home with us.

When you have twins it is very important to have a routine for both mum and dad, as well as for the girls. In my opinion a bedtime routine is really important. It helps children to know what to expect, and also helps mum and dad to relax a bit as you know your children will be soon be sound asleep!

If you didn’t have a bedtime routine you simply wouldn’t get any rest time, or any time together as a couple.

Our bedtime routine starts around 6pm with winding down time. Our girls will put their pjs on, and then we have cuddle time on the sofa whilst watching the end of CBeebies before ‘In the night garden starts.’

At around 6.20pm the girls will go to their bedroom with us for story time and a chat about their day. According to a new study the traditional routine of ‘bath, book and bed’, could soon be consigned to the history books. Researchers carried out an in-depth study of parents into bedtime routines – and discovered 74 percent of parents now regularly give their kids a quick shower rather than a bath.

A further 74 percent of the parents who took part in the study, claimed their children preferred screen-time rather than a book before bed.

Psychologist Dr Becky Superman says that having a routine is important for quality time. It’s when parents can be available to their children, giving them their full attention, in case they are worried or scared about anything that is going on in their lives.

I totally agree with this. We all lead such busy lives, so that calm and quiet time just before bed is one of my favourite parts of the day.

The girls choose what books they want to be read to them. Although this can sometimes take a while as the girls pick a story each and then they will read each other’s story on their own beds. Sometimes mummy reads the stories, other times it’s me. They’re a fickle pair as it all depends on who is in favour on the night! It’s a lovely moment every night as the girls are quiet, as they listen and learn from the written word which for me is so important that they develop a love of books.

While they are having a story they’ll drink their milk, and settle down for a good nights rest. After all they have been on the go for 12 hours!

Worryingly the survey also found that a staggering 42 percent of parents allow their children to watch TV at bedtime, with a further 28 percent allowing them to play on I-pads, phones and laptops. For me activities such as watching TV and playing on electronic devices before bedtime doesn’t give children the chance to wind down.

Dr Becky Spelman also says that neither adults nor children should engage with screens for at least an hour before going to bed. The blue lights in screens engage the most “alert” parts of the brain, and make it difficult to get to sleep, and hard to achieve deep, refreshing sleep.

In fact that there are a number of things that you can do to help your child relax, wind down and drift off into a deep sleep. Chris from LED Hut, who commissioned the study of 1,000 parents with primary school aged children commented on the research:

“The survey has revealed some shocking insights into children’s night time habits!

“No fixed bedtimes, coupled with parents leaving the light on for their children all night means that our children are simply not getting enough sleep.

“Creating the right atmosphere is important and lighting plays a big part in that, dimming the lights or using warm shade LED bulbs will create a calm environment.

“Rather than waste electricity by leaving a light on all night, we would recommend using an energy efficient LED night light instead, which will prevent complete darkness but not interrupt healthy sleep.”

What do you think? I’d love to hear your opinions!